Articles in this issue:

• Rivalries in U.S. Professional Soccer

  Jadrian Wooten

  This paper investigates factors that contribute to attendance in Major League Soccer with a primary focus on the effect of repeat rivalry matches during a season. Using ordinary least squares, a panel of 2,193 matches (6 seasons) finds significant effects of a variety of match determinants, including how rivalries are defined in the estimation. With an increased focus on creating rivalries, the data supports potential diminishing returns from overscheduling of rivalry matches. Fans and leagues appear to place a high value on scheduling rivalry matches, however it appears these impacts are...Read more

• Migration and Football Player Market Value: Evidence from Greece

  Panagiotis E. Dimitropoulos

  Antonios K. Travlos

  & Stylianos Panagiotopoulos

  The scope of this study was to examine the determinant factors of young football players’ market values and whether the migration constitutes a significant variable which enhances players’ annual valuation. A database of all young migrant and local athletes that participated in the professional Greek football championship over the period 2008-2013 was utilized. Descriptive evidence revealed that migrant athletes had higher annual market values and were given higher participation chances com-pared to local football players. Instrumental variable regression analyses revealed that football...Read more

• Moneyball and the Baseball Players’ Labor Market

  Paul M. Holmes

  Rob Simmons

  and David J. Berri

  Michael Lewis’s best-selling book, Moneyball, demonstrated the efforts of Oakland A’s General Manager, Billy Beane, to create a successful baseball team in spite of its location in a small market. Previous studies have argued that the salary returns to the neglected skill of on base percentage (OBP) should rise once the Oakland A’s hitters demonstrated proficiency with this skill. Our key result is that after Moneyball was published in 2003, hitter salaries for free agents signing new contracts were not more closely related to OBP. Consistent with efficiency, we find no long-term...Read more

• Does Online Media Put Beauty Before Performance? The Impact of Physical Attractiveness on the Popularity of Female Tennis Players in Online Media

  Stephanie Kiefer and Katrin Scharfenkamp

  Discussions about the impact of physical attractiveness on the popularity of competitive athletes have received much attention from scholars and the worldwide media. We provide new insights into this debate, and draw managerial implications by estimating OLS and Tobit regressions to test whether and to what extent the physical attractiveness of professional female tennis players affects (changes in) their popularity in online media. Based on a sample of the top 100 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) single ranking of one selected calendar week in 2011 and 2012, we find that physical...Read more

• The Determinants of Sporting Success in the Brazilian Football League

  Thadeu Gasparetto and Angel Barajas

  The determinants of sporting success in Olympic Games and international football have been analysed. Nevertheless, few studies are found on football club-level. The aim of this paper is to identify the determinants of sporting success at professional club-level studying the Brazilian League. The dataset comprises all 30 football clubs that competed in the First Division of the Brazilian League from 2010 to 2014. The econometric approach consists in an ordered logit regression. The dependent variable is the final position of each club. The findings reveal that team payroll, placement in a...Read more